Excerpt: Weightless Marigolds

“Where are we going?” Vera asks, her hand sweaty in my firm grip.

“A walk,” I say, tramping through the dirt barefoot. I feel like such a hick in this moment—I have shoes. I should have worn shoes. Vera doesn’t respond, just wraps her fingers tighter around mine.

We walk until we’ve passed the ruin and haphazard slump of trailers and busted cars. The nearest neighborhood consists of a few gray houses, squat like pouting old men, and plumes of barbecue smoke wrench the air. My stomach gurgles, but it doesn’t bother me until I hear Vera’s do the same.

“I thought you had dinner at Kathy’s,” I say, voice accusing.

She averts her eyes, ashamed. “I did.”

“Like hell you did.” I stop, my fingers tilting her chin to face me. “If you weren’t at Kathy’s, where were you?”

“I just didn’t want you worrying about me.”

“What?”

“I knew we didn’t have stuff at home, okay? And I didn’t want you beating yourself up about it.”

I stare at her. The guilt is a separate entity, an albatross on my neck—the moment when I look at my little sister and see a jutting collarbone and weak limbs.

“Don’t lie to me again, okay?” I say. She nods her head.

By the time we come back home, smacking our lips on the saltiness of pistachios, Phil’s left. I nudge open the trailer, making sure none of his crap is lying around. Vera tentatively enters after me. Once she’s asleep, curled tightly in the corner of the bed, I go back outside.

There’s a set of abandoned swings behind one of the empty trailers. They stand like benevolent apparitions. I clamber onto the sturdiest swing. Wrap my fingers around the cold metal. The night is freckled with lonely stars. The moon is held hostage by a string of gray clouds. It feels like resignation, the concealment of the moon. It feels like the sharp pain in my stomach.

“Hey.” A boy stands in front of me, calmly. I don’t respond. “Just moved in.” His thumb points behind him.

My fingers grip the cool comfort of the chains. Let go abruptly. I spin like a broken clock. “Guess this is your property, then,” I say.

“You can stay. I don’t mind.”

“You’re not a creep, right?” My feet dig into the dirt. “Because that would suck.”

The corner of his mouth tilts upward. “Not a creep.”

The boy keeps his gaze on me. His eyes are kind but melancholy, black like pools of river water. It rockets through me, hot and fast. If there’s anything I’ve learned, living in a wasteland where the grass scrapes my ankles like fingernails, where smoke tastes the air in a slithering haze, where the chugging of brash music and harsh sunlight slashes the skin like glass, is that people don’t change. I know this with a firm, fierce, unwavering knowledge. People lie and hide and thieve and burn and cry. But they don’t change. So when I see this boy, eyes rimmed black with long lashes, eyes frozen and sad with a depth I can almost touch, I don’t expect him to change. I don’t expect me to change. 

I just think that I have finally found someone like me.

                                                                   ***

I stare at him, shocked. “You like Hemingway?”

Diego grabs a root beer from the fridge. “That’s a bad thing?”

“If you’re a fan of misogyny and pretentious white men and mustaches, I guess not.”

A corner of his mouth turns upwards. “Tell me how you really feel.”

I collapse onto his couch, tucking in my legs. Red prayer candles line every window. Patron saints, with clasped hands and eyes tilted heavenward, guard every sill.

“They look nice,” I say politely.

Diego smiles wryly. “They’re Raffie’s.”

“Ah. Raffie.”

He sits next to me, handing me a can of soda. “My cousin. She and my aunt love candles. And Catholicism. So it works out.”

“Who’s your favorite saint?” I ask, poking him.

“That’s easy.” Diego leans against the couch, his leg knocking into mine. “St. Jude. Patron saint of lost causes.”

I take a sip of my drink, the bubbles fizzing on my tongue. “That’s definitely my favorite, too.” 

“But not Hemingway,” Diego says jokingly.

I shake my head. “Never. And you better not tell me you like Catcher in the Rye.”

Diego doesn’t respond.

I bury my head in my arms. “Jesus Christ,” I say. “Your room’s a shrine to lost boy angst, isn’t it?”

He watches me, amused. “Would you like to see it?”

I raise an eyebrow. “No funny business?”

Diego holds up his hands. “No funny business,” he says solemnly.

As soon as we enter his room, I jump onto his bed. I spread my arms on the comforter, breathing in fresh cotton and sun.

“Just because I’m in your bed does not mean anything questionable shall occur,” I say archly. He grins and sprawls next to me, his legs hanging off the edge of the comforter.

“I love the smell of clean laundry,” I say.

“I used to help my mom hang clothes outside.” Diego smiles. “I mostly just tried to juggle the clothespins.” A cold misery settles in the corners of his mouth, in the shadows under his black eyes.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“My dad worked in construction,” Diego says softly. “A loose beam knocked him in the head.” His hands tighten into fists and then grow slack. “He woke up in the hospital with the police standing right in front of his cot.” Diego rolls over and buries his head in his pillow. “My mom and I stepped into the room and—we knew it was all over.” His hair is so black it gleams blue under the sunlight.

“How long have they been back in Mexico?”

He shifts onto his side, his arms drawing me close. “Two years.” Gently, he brushes hair from my cheek. “Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t even born here. That’s crazy, right? But then…then I could go back without feeling guilty. Like I wasn’t throwing away an opportunity.”

I want to tell him that it’s okay to feel so wrong and warped and squeezed tight like wet clothes. I want to tell him that I understand why he wants to run. I want to tell him to take me with him. The heat of the sun, the bright colors slanting off the houses, can burn off our old skins. We’ll be free. It’s a naïve dream and it drowns fast in my thoughts. I don’t really know how to say any of that. So I pull his warm arms around me. And I kiss him instead.

                                                                      ***

Vera looks up from her book, fingers splayed over the cover of Catch-22.  “Who’s coming over?”

My washcloth skims the kitchen counter. “Diego. For lunch.”

“Oh.” She closes the book. “He’s the guy you just met, right?”

I glance at her. “I met him three weeks ago.”

“So, he’s, what? Your boyfriend?” Her voice is unexpectedly petulant.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I pull out a few flimsy dollar bills. “Can you get some chicken at the store?”

“We’re using our money for this?”

I look at her, annoyed. “Well, we’ll be eating it, too, right?”

Vera sighs. “Fine.”

She exits the trailer slowly, her legs dragging on the carpet. I watch her uncertainly from the window, surprised. She has never acted like this before.

I walk throughout the trailer, attempting to clean it up—or at least make it slightly respectable. In the bathroom, I dig through the cabinet, searching for our old hairdryer. A small pouch slips from behind a row of nail polish. It’s empty.

I know the plastic pouches too well. It’s the reason I leave home every time Phil brings his friends over. It’s why I forget to put on shoes and trudge around in the dark with Vera, dirt clinging to my toes, burrs biting my legs. It’s the reason my parents wear orange jumpsuits like degenerate villains cast into a black hole. I know I shouldn’t tolerate Phil’s actions. I know what his meetings with his friends actually are. But he’s my brother. And he’ll be my brother whenever he stops getting so lucky. He’ll be my brother when metal bars stripe shadows on his face.

                                                                    ***

Diego arrives with his hair gelled back. I press my fist to my mouth, swallowing my laughter.

“What?” he asks. I shake my head. “What?” He steps closer. He grabs my waist and I shriek with laughter.

“Chicken’s ready.” Vera pauses when she sees us. “Hello,” she says coolly.

“Hi.” Diego holds out his hand. She stands like a statue of Aphrodite, poised, arrogant, unmoving—and ignorant of my deathly gaze. “Smells great,” he says affably.

“So what happened to your parents? Nora won’t tell me.”

I stare at Vera, shocked. Diego touches my hand and looks at her calmly.

“They got deported.”

She watches him closely, her finger tapping her bottom lip. “That sucks.”

“What a succinct reply,” I say icily.

“What a big, impressive word,” Vera snaps back.

“Who wants flan?” Diego asks, holding up a big blue Tupperware.

                                                                 ***

After lunch, I whisk Diego away, apologizing for my sister’s strange behavior.

He smiles. “She’s protective. I get it.”

The sun melts over the grass, spilling light in orange waves. Our shadows merge in and out, crashing into each other like overeager lovers. We spend too much time in the park, intertwined in the grass, dizzy with the sun’s fierce smiling and the breathless blue of the sky. Dusk alights on the swings, on our skin, too fast. Diego insists on walking me back home.

“Thanks for having me over,” he says.

“Thanks for the flan. It might just be better than cake.”

Diego smiles. “Aunt Helena will be really happy to hear that.”

The streetlight down the road flickers on abruptly, painting the ground white. We are submerged in shadow, swallowed by the night. Diego cradles my face in his hands.

“I think I like you too much,” he whispers. His eyelashes pattern the ridges of his eyebrows. I wipe my hands on my jeans, impossibly sweaty.

“Me too,” I say softly.

He leans in closer, mouth near my ear. “If I knew poetry, I would totally recite it to you right now.”

I laugh, pressing my hands against his chest. “Dork.”

He grins. “Sonnetsonnetsonnet,” he says.

I’m smiling so widely my face hurts. “Heartflutterheartflutter.”

                                                                    ***

When I come inside, Vera is washing the dishes. She stands on a scarred wooden footstool, wiping our plastic plates with extreme care—as if they were made of porcelain.

“You like him a lot, don’t you?” she says. I glance at her. She’s gazing out the window, her long black hair swooping over her shoulders like a curtain.

“Yeah.” I walk toward her tentatively. “That’s okay, right?”

She looks at me, eyes gray and neutral. “It’s nice liking someone.” She stacks the plates on the counter.

I touch her shoulder. “You’re fine, though. Right?”

“It’d be pretty selfish of me not to be.” She slides away, positioning herself against a chair. “But I do worry about you.”

I smile a little. “I’m the big sister here, Vera.”

Her brow wrinkles. “I don’t live in a fairy tale, Nora. I’m not stupid like you think I am.”

I look at her, confused. “I don’t think that.”

She folds her arms. “I know what Phil does when he’s not here. I know he doesn’t have a real job.” Her eyes focus on the pale blue curtain behind me, flapping in the breeze. “I know what Mom was like, too.”

“Vera.”

“Just…” she sighs. “Be careful, okay? Don’t…” her voice drops to a whisper, “Don’t lose yourself in him.”

I purse my lips, annoyed. “Thanks for the wisdom, sis.”

She sighs. “He can’t always be the one to make you feel better.” She brushes past me, toward our room. “Sometimes you have to do it yourself.”